The monastery is monk-ey!

Family! Friends! Hello! It's so bizarre to have internet again; I've been out of the world of technology for a little over a week now, and despite the fact that it doesn't feel like I ever left, it's been hard not communicating with anybody. So anyway this is what I've been up to!

Wednesday, April 15:
In the morning I went with Courtney and Abby to Marché HLM (the cloth market), but on the way we walked through what Abby calls “the shoe market,” for one obvious reason: there are more shoes there than I can even imagine. Oh, and other than shoes, there are shoelaces. Millions. But the best part was, among all these shoes and shoelaces, I spotted a table filled with Barack Obama underpants.
We were successful at HLM and then that afternoon I planned to take the bus to my third kora lesson with the griots. I was waiting for the bus when a man came up to me and asked which bus I was waiting for, and when I replied P8, he told me to come with him. I first acted uninterested because people ask me to go with them all the time to go look at their goods and buy something, and I was just trying to wait for the bus and didn’t want to go look at some “hand-made” jewelry. But then I realized he was trying to help me; apparently there was a detour and the bus wouldn’t be coming by that stop. So we walked to another bus stop, but then he noticed the buses weren’t coming by that one either, so we walked to a third and waited 45 minutes until the P8 finally came—FULLY packed with people. I could see no way one more person could fit on that bus. But, being the adventurous person I am (ha), I decided to go for it. I followed the one other guy who dared to push his way into this sea of people and was smushed into a little crevice where I had no idea my body could fit, my head pressed between a metal bar and a man’s body and the front of my body trying to find a position that would avoid the mechanized door when it swung open. All was going well, I had an eye on my purse and could at least breathe, until I switched my hand position from trying to hold myself in place by pressing against the window, to holding on to a metal bar. Turns out the mechanized door passes about ½ an inch from that bar when it swings open, so when we stopped it swung and caught on my hand, and my hand was squeezed between this metal bar and the door that was still trying to open. I found it a little funny (afterwards) that my first thought was not “OW THAT HURTS!” But rather, “OH NO, what am I going to do if I break my hand and can’t play the kora?!?!”
Anyway after that fun little escapade (my hand is now fine, by the way, just in a bit of pain) I arrived at my kora lesson to find Fa and his two cute little kids lying on the bed watching a soap opera and the uncle ready to teach me. I picked up my kora and absolutely nothing went through my head. They had told me to leave the kora there over night even though I was pretty sure I should practice, and, lo and behold, I had forgotten everything from the day before. Mamadou was very surprised and asked why I didn’t practice in my head! (I’m glad this happened, though, because they ended up starting to let me take the kora home over night to practice.) After re-learning the first song, a conversation with Fa turned into a little interview for my project. We talked about why griots play and teach the kora, the differences between the griots and the monks, how griots learn the kora in the first place, the values griots place on music, etc. So that was good and very handy for my project.
After my lesson I took a taxi home and later I went with Kenna and Bethany downtown to go out to dinner for what we thought might be Mexican food. The taxi driver had no idea how to get to the street we were saying but told us he did; that’s one huge difference between the taxis here and the ones in the U.S.: rarely does a taxi driver actually know the place you’re going to. Anyway the place we were going to go (le Mex) was closed, so we ended up in a cute little hole-in-the-wall place with hamburgers and pizza. We had a nice dinner and then they had to get home (because they’re still in a homestay) so we headed home and I started packing for my upcoming trip to the monastery.

Thursday, April 16: My last day in Dakar for a couple weeks! I packed some more in the morning and did some last-minute organizational things for my trip, went to lunch at the shack for the last time, and then went to my last kora lesson with the griots. It was filming day (the whole process of getting consent to film was pretty complicated, but we had agreed that on the last day I could film if I gave some compensation) so I brought my video camera and tripod (I guess I should explain why I wanted to film the lessons. As part of my ISP I’m looking at the differences between teaching styles of griots and monks, and thought filming the lessons would make it easier for me to concentrate on learning the kora during the lessons and not trying to remember all the details of the teaching style, and then be able to look at them later.) and set them up. Fa seemed to kind of have a plan for what my movie should be like; he told me when to turn on the camera and even what questions to ask. After a while though it became more natural and I did get some good footage of their natural teaching style.
After my last lesson Megan, Erin and I met up to go out for a “goodbye” dinner. We went downtown to investigate the restaurant situation and ended up at a beautiful Vietnamese place. It was excellent and really nice to spend some relaxing time with two good friends ☺
Afterwards, as it was Whitney’s 21st birthday, the group went to a karaoke restaurant. I didn’t stay for long but it was pretty hilarious (and some of the people we saw there I think might go there every night to sing), and I’m disappointed I didn’t get to see anyone from our group sing. But I had to finish packing.

Friday, April 17: I left around 9am to test my hypothesis that getting to Keur Moussa with a suitcase and a kora would actually be possible. It actually went much better than I expected; I was immediately led to a seven-seat taxi upon arriving at the Garage Pompiers, the kora and my suitcase fit nicely in the back (and my kora didn’t break!!!), and I was given a seat squished very tightly between two men in the back of the car. One man was named Abraham and he was very nice and spoke English, and had the funniest cutest little high-pitched laugh for a middle-aged man with a deep voice. I got dropped at Kilometre Cinquante to catch a taxi to the monastery, and when I arrived at the monastery the monk I was looking for magically appeared. He said that after the prayer service was lunch, and after that they’d take me to my room. I went to the prayer service and then was led to a room for lunch with a dining table and waited there for about half an hour (to my surprise nobody else ever showed up) before I was brought an unbelievable amount of food. I asked, am I eating alone?! And the man said yes, you have to finish all this. It was: a large platter of rice, a large platter of fish and many eggplants and carrots, three huge slices of papaya/melon, half a baguette, and 5 oranges. I REALLY hope the man was joking that I was supposed to finish all of that; it was excellent but enough for 4 or 5 people to eat a very substantial lunch.
After I finished I was taken to my room. It’s about a 5-minute walk from the monastery. It had a nice kitchen/dining room, a real toilet, and my room has a shower and a sink inside! It’s really great and seems like a nice relaxing place with not much distraction, so an intensive study of an instrument seems like a good pastime! There are 5 bedrooms and I wasn’t sure if anyone else was staying there.
In the afternoon I had my first kora lesson with Frère Jean Baptiste. It was, as expected, VERY different from those with the griots, much more like music lessons I’ve taken in the U.S. I learned scales and finger exercises and we talked about what I’d like to learn and what I’ve already learned. I found out that, after all my nervousness about bringing the kora from SIT, I didn’t actually have to bring it; I’m using one of the koras made by the monastery.
After about 2 hours of lessons I returned home to practice, cook dinner (I can cook as much as I want here!!! Hallelujah!) and try to tune the SIT kora. I went to bed nice and early after Erin called to check up on me, and at around 2 in the morning I heard some people arrive, so I think there are some other people staying here after all.

Saturday, April 18: In the morning I took a little jog to the town to buy some eggs, cheese, bread and veggies for my cooking pleasure. I wore shorts for the first time since getting to Senegal, it was really weird to see my legs.
At 10 I left with the monks to go to the Convent a few miles away. They were invited to join in the mass and party that was going on afterwards; they were celebrating one of the sister’s 50th anniversary of being a nun, her “Golden Jubilee,” as my new friend Brother Justin called it. Brother Justin is Nigerian and therefore doesn’t speak French, so when he found out I spoke English we immediately became friends! This is his first time out of his country (he got here in September) and he speaks very little French or Wolof so he’s having a tough time, but we had a wonderful few hours together at lunch and he’s hilarious. All the monks are very young and laid-back and funny, to my pleasant surprise! It’s amazing to see the change in their mood from when they’re in a prayer service to when they exit the church; it’s just hard to believe they’re the same people. It’s also a HUGE change hanging out with them after being in Dakar for so long; I was astonished they served me a beer at lunch (Muslims don’t drink beer, and I guess I just kind of assumed that monks wouldn’t either) and when I finished they made me have another one. I sat with Brother Justin at lunch; it felt great to be able to relate so much to someone here! We’re both in a strange country, neither of us are confident in our language skills, we’re both very close with our families, and neither of us know all the monks! I also met the four people who moved into my house last night; they’re from France and they went to school with one of the monks, Brother François, who I met the first time I visited Keur Moussa oh so long ago.
I was at first a little disappointed not to be having any kora lessons on my first full day at Keur Moussa, but soon after waking up realized how eternally GLAD I was because I had developed a large painful blister on one of my thumbs, a key finger for playing the kora.
I took a very nice nap and in the evening I walked to town (it takes about 20 minutes) to buy some water. I got very mixed reactions at being white in this town; some people were very friendly but some, when I walked by, just said “toubab,” and others just stared at me in disbelief. I think these people are used to seeing toubabs drive by (to go to the famous monastery) but don’t often see one who walked all the way from the monastery to purchase something from them…

Sunday, April 19
I went for a little exploration-jog and came upon the beginning of a nearby village. It’s so nice to have so much peace and nature here; it’s pretty much the opposite of Dakar.
Later I went to Sunday Mass, it was pretty different than last time I went (in March); there was a group of musicians in the balcony above me who sang a few of the songs and they were phenomenal. That did mean though that the koras were used less, but I guess I’ll have my fill of kora in these upcoming weeks!
Oh, speaking of the kora, I think it’s about time I explained my project a little. April 11th started our ISP Period, that is, our month to study some aspect of Senegalese arts or culture independently. I chose to study the kora. Here is my “project summary” I put in my ISP Proposal:
“For my ISP I plan to take three weeks of kora lessons: one week with a traditional griot and two weeks with the monks of the monastery of Keur Moussa. Through this study I will use a combination of participation, observation, informal interview and literature research to examine the kora in depth through intensively learning to play the instrument, and aim to distinguish the differences between the two styles of teaching, find out possible reasons for these variations, and to experience and take note of how the two teaching styles affect my learning of the instrument.”
So that’s what I’m doing. As you know I finished the week with the griots, and I’m now at the monastery. Sorry I didn’t explain that earlier!
On the way to Mass I had seen an old woman selling corn on the cob, which I haven’t seen since I’ve been here, so when I came out of Mass two hours later and she was still there I decided to buy some. I asked for one ear and she started collecting a handful of them and speaking in Wolof. I even knew how to say “just one!” in Wolof, but she definitely didn’t understand…she also couldn’t see the money so she just kept taking coins until I ran out. Luckily a woman came by to help and sorted out the money situation, and I ended up getting 5 ears of corn. The one I had for lunch might have been the best corn I’ve ever had. Just in case you were wondering.
In the afternoon I met Brother Justin to hang out, and it turns out we both brought our koras! So we played a little together, he played me some Nigerian songs and then started teaching me some little things (which I ended up learning later in my lesson) and we talked about how he decided to become a monk. It was a really interesting story and very inspiring; once he knew what he wanted he REALLY persisted, for years, until he finally was able to enter a monastery and is now still happy with that decision.
I then had my lesson with Brother Jean Baptiste; it was hard for me to remember what I had to study for homework because it wasn’t written, but I played what I had remembered to practice and he made me learn on the spot the things he had shown me and I had apparently forgotten. (This reminded me of (and made me miss) piano lessons with Grammy; she always wrote exactly what I had to practice for next week, I think I took that organization for granted! I would have written what to practice for the kora but I wasn’t sure how to express what the exercises were without ever seeing written kora music.) He then started teaching me the “accords,” I’m not sure how that translates to English, but basically there are little note phrases for each of “do,” “re,” “mi,” “fa,” etc. in 2/4 time and I have to learn them all and be able to switch back and forth between them without stopping. He’s pretty intense but that’s what I wanted!
Afterwards I practiced the “accords” for a while outside in the shade, surrounded by birds (some of which make really weird too-close-to-human-like noises). The realization of how much alone-time I have here started to hit me as I thought of possible pastimes: play the kora, go for a walk, or do schoolwork. This is exactly what I wanted in coming to a monastery to intensively study an instrument, but it does get lonely, no matter how solitary of a person I am.
Brother Justin called in the afternoon to ask if I wanted to see the workshop where they make koras. He set up a time for me to go see it: Tuesday morning! So that should be interesting. Originally when thinking about a possible project I wanted to learn to make a kora also; I now see that that’d be almost impossible because of time constraints, but I’m still interested in seeing the place.

Monday, April 20
I got up early to play some kora (I always feel like I haven’t practiced enough, these lessons make me nervous!) and then had my lesson at 9. I met some women from a nearby village on the way who asked what my kora was, where I was from, why I would ever come to Senegal if I live in the U.S. because Senegal is poor…etc. People seem to really have the view that everyone in the U.S. is rich and it’s easy to find jobs; I guess compared to a lot of Senegal that’s true but it’s hard know how to respond when people are telling me how much they want to go to my country and asking why the hell I would ever come here!
I practiced things from my first lesson of the day for my second lesson of the day (which apparently was at 4, not at 3 like the day before, so I ended up waiting in the classroom and practicing for an hour) where I suddenly was faced with written kora music! Jean Baptiste set it in front of me and told me to play it. Ok, not only do I not know how the written notes correspond to the strings (do the C’s correspond with the “Do’s”?), I’m a little confused as to why, on some notes, there is a “3” or a “II” or a “1-II” on the stem instead of a note. So that was a fun lesson, very intense, and I have a long night of practicing ahead of me!
And after a long day, I just counted up my hours: 10 hours of playing the kora today! I’m not sure if that seems like a lot or a little to me… it should seem like a lot, but I don’t feel like I really got anywhere today. We’ll see how my lesson goes tomorrow…

Tuesday, April 21
I met Brother Justin to go and see the workshop where they make the koras. It was really interesting; I got to see the traditional koras, the step-up from that (with wooden keys for tuning instead of leather bands), the step-up from that (with metal guitar keys) and the modern chromatic kora that only Keur Moussa makes. I also saw all the parts of the kora separately and they showed me basically how it gets put together. We then took a walk around the monastery’s land to see everything they have: orchards galore (tangerines, mangos, grapefruit), a cheese-making shop, a carpentry/welding shop, a place where they make juices, huge pigs, cows, lots of farmland where they grow cassava, onions, corn, etc., a cemetery, a guest area, chickens, a soccer field, a basketball court…basically it’s HUGE and I had no idea any of it was there!
It turned out my morning lesson was cancelled and I was SO happy because I knew I’d just have to practice the same thing over and over for the afternoon, so I didn’t really see a point in having a lesson to be told that. But my teacher had gone away without telling me…so it was cancelled without me even having to say anything! I still had my lesson at 4 but I felt much more prepared (though once I get in the classroom I always play everything about 3x worse than I did at home, alone). My afternoon lesson was much less stressful than I imagined! I played the songs and he told me which passages I needed to keep working on, and then for about the next hour we basically had a little interview/story time about the history of the kora within the monastery.
That night I practiced the kora (as usual), went for a nice run, saw the monks playing soccer (it was SO weird to see them in sports clothes instead of their white hooded gowns), played some more kora, and decided to take a break from playing kora by reading a little. That was a wonderful idea, I think; I’m afraid I’m going to really get sick of playing the kora if I keep doing it so often, and if I’m usually frustrated with my inability to play certain parts, that will give me kind of a stressed-frustrated feeling anytime I play it. And we don’t want that!

Wednesday, April 22
I slept in!!! Until almost 8:00! I played some kora before going to my lesson, which was my most intense lesson yet. Instead of Jean Baptiste putting some music in front of me and then leaving for an hour while I tried to learn it, he drilled my skills by having me accompany him while he sang prayers. To make a long story short, it was hard and frustrating, but it’s what I need in a lesson (I can learn music on my own in my own time; lesson time should be for teaching, in my opinion). I then took a couple hours to myself, with no kora practice—I think this renewed my motivation for playing! I walked into town and bought some water (there is no longer any water in this house, even tap water, I think they used it all yesterday to plant some things and water them) and made some mashed potatoes for lunch.
My afternoon lesson consisted of me playing two songs over and over while Jean Baptiste prepared a music theory course he was going to give to the monks right afterwards; I find I can play much better when I don’t think he’s paying attention. Sorry if these monastery entries are getting repetitive (I played the kora, and I had a tough lesson, and I played the kora again, and had another tough lesson, and then practiced the kora for a couple more hours) but hey, if you’re reading this blog, you want to know what I’m up to, right? Basically I’m averaging about 8 hours a day of kora-playing and trying to keep up my motivation by taking little breaks and finding little hobbies to get away from the kora for a couple minutes at a time.

Thursday, April 23
I had my lesson in the morning, that is, I played for 2 and a half hours in a classroom while Jean Baptiste checked on me every hour or so. In the afternoon I had another lesson which turned into a conversation instead of a real lesson (to my relief, in a way, because playing still makes me nervous), and then afterwards I met up with Brother Justin to share photos of our families and friends from home. We ended up trading some pictures and it was really fun to see what his life is like at home and in his other monastery.
The French people who live in my house left for the weekend and the water came back, so I was feeling quite relaxed and free! I soaked my feet in warm water and listened to music for a while, played the kora for only half an hour before bed.

Today is Friday, and this morning after my lesson I went through the adventure of getting a taxi (which involved meeting a man named Benoit who makes shoes for the monks who has a friend who's a driver) and coming back to Dakar--Saturday is the Day of the Kora and I’m not sure what that is but hopefully I’ll find out! They weren't going to celebrate it at all at the monastery so this trip back to Dakar is not only serving as a way to get back in touch with people, but also a great opportunity to get information for my project.

So next week I'll be internet-less again but I'll be in Dakar until Sunday morning, so I should be able to be in touch until then, just in case you were wondering :)
I only have about 3 weeks left here....I'm beginning to feel like I haven't been here very long at ALL but I'm also looking forward to this summer, so I think I'll be alright leaving. We'll see--I'm sure my feelings will change as the time dwindles...

Lots of love, keep in touch!